Let's discuss the Steam Achievements

As mentioned in the latest Beamblog entry, Beamdog are in the process of testing the Steam achievement system. I've thought it would be a good thing to discuss this system as it's now, so that we could give them our feedback.

BGEE has currently only 5 achievements:

Loremaster - Have a Lore skill of 100 or more.Untouchable - Have an Armor Class of -15 or lower.GodlikeDark PlacesDragon Slayer

I think that the BG games didn't need any achievements, but since they're already worked on, there's no harm in getting them.

My view is that there're too many achievements. 93 is too much. I see a lot of quest achievements and personally think that the majority of them are not needed. Maybe only the achievements about the main quest should stay, and about rare (more hidden) quests, like the Twisted Rune.

I like achievements that don't include any quests: Finish the game without any party members dying, Complete the game solo, Complete the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty.

The achievement I would like to be added a lot is Finish the game without the main character dying. BG has a rich history of no-reload runs and this achievement will really be of a help to us, no-reloaders.

Also, it's unclear how the "Flying Solo" achievement could be transferred to BGEE, since Imoen joins the party automatically.

I don't have a steam version of the game, but if I did, after the achievemens are added, I would be trying to get all of them, which would mean new and new runs through the game (and this is a good thing).

Comments

I'm pretty ambivalent towards achievements in general (though I confess I've done pretty much all the things in this list), but just to mention that you can avoid Imoen in BG1 by immediately moving south off the map, or killing her on sight because you killed her in Candlekeep, so she must be a doppelganger.

I agree with @bengoshi - discovering and completing quests within the game are their own reward, and should not be spoiled by having an achievement badge advertising their existence. This is one of my pet bugbears about 'achievements' in modern games. I do like achievements for beating the game in different ways, that encourage replays. I mentioned before that as a completionist, I find speed runs hard to motivate. Achievements for speed runs would put my completionist tendency to work for a non-completionist run or two The first mass effect game had achievements for beating the game with each of the companions, but you had to take that companion on enough missions, not just one or two, to qualify. For companions that required a bit of the game to get to, that could also be a challenge, and was welcome. Achievements should live up to the name, rather than be handed out like candy.

For what I see above, BGEE seems to have taken my preferred approach, and BG2EE jumped off a cliff in the other direction. As I don't play on Steam anyway though, this won't affect me unless they port the system over to the Apple App Store.

I like to collect Steam achievements, as long as they don't become the reason for playing. I only like the ones that come naturally through playing the game normally. I'm not going to do something like "Finish the game without resting," "Kill Drizzt", "Rest in a hostile area until you kill 100 rest-spawned enemies," "Rescue Dynaheir without killing a single gnoll", etc.

Why are all the Steam global values at 0%? Are the current achievements in place without being actually active and winnable yet?

Why are all the Steam global values at 0%? Are the current achievements in place without being actually active and winnable yet?

According to http://blog.beamdog.com/2016/02/beamdog-achievements.html, "You might see achievements for our games on Steam but be unable to access them. That's because we're still internally testing the achievements to make sure they're fully functional when they go live in the next update. We'll post again here when that happens."

My view is that there're too many achievements. 93 is too much. I see a lot of quest achievements and personally think that the majority of them are not needed. Maybe only the achievements about the main quest should stay, and about rare (more hidden) quests, like the Twisted Rune.

I like achievements that don't include any quests: Finish the game without any party members dying, Complete the game solo, Complete the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty.

The achievement I would like to be added a lot is Finish the game without the main character dying. BG has a rich history of no-reload runs and this achievement will really be of a help to us, no-reloaders.

Also, it's unclear how the "Flying Solo" achievement could be transferred to BGEE, since Imoen joins the party automatically.

I don't have a steam version of the game, but if I did, after the achievemens are added, I would be trying to get all of them, which would mean new and new runs through the game (and this is a good thing).

P.S. The visuals of the achievements are superb. The icons look nice.

Having side quest as a achievement allows players to realize they might have missed something their first play through. The achievements are like little check marks allowing the player to know they have discovered everything the game has to offer.

Too many achievements I'm afraid. I do not think I will actually yet to get all of them but I expect that I will get at least half of them in a normal play through. Thing is, with that many achievements when you start playing you probably get a pop up every few minutes. That kind of distracts from the game itself.

It looks like Steam's browser site is showing all of the achievements (even a lot of ones that are supposed to be "hidden"); if you view that same page in the Steam client itself, the visible list is much shorter.

Just read BG2's achievement list and I'm surprised at how much I like them. Specially because they're mostly not silly/random things that serve no purpose to the game other than unlocking an achievement. You can unlock practically all of them just by replaying the game with different NPCs and choosing different paths, which is what most players already do anyway.

@elminster , creative use of familar (not sure if EE nerfed the exploit)?

Correct. You can use a familiar to pickpocket the Rift Device from yourself, then stow it in your pack, leave the sewers, and retrieve the Device at some later point. The check of whether you have brought it to the surface only happens when you leave the sewers, after that you're good to go.

Something creative to figure out for people who're into that sort of stuff.

What exactly makes achievements trigger? I'm currently doing a run with my Elven Wild Mage and reached heroic reputation but the achievement didn't kick in. Does having your console on or mods disable achievements?

Start with a good AC, add spells that lower it like blur and improved invisibility, the +3 protection ring and all the items that boost it, have your cleric and bard help you a bit, equip a good shield and you can reach the cap, that is well beyond -15

I don't think this warrants a new thread and I'm not sure @Dee is the one I should be pestering about this but I'm taking the opportunity to point out that the "Seize the Throne" achievement is misspelled as "Sieze the Throne."

As someone who loves achievements and also has fond memories of the games from when they first came out, I'm looking forward to hunting for these. I don't think that 93 is too many at all; I'd even be fine with more of them to be honest. I'm also very happy with the variety of achievements that we see.

For those that have been asking, you can't unlock them yet. Also, I'm assuming that BG1 will end up with more than 5 achievements (at least I'm hoping for way more). Until recently, BG2 only had a placeholder 3 achievements. A recent update boosted that up to the current 93 that we see. I'd expect the same with BG1 and I'm hoping for a similar amount in that game.

I'd also like to see them in IWD and point out that a lot of games use spoiler protection to hide plot and quest achievements until the player completes those, which might be nice for those concerned about that.

I especially like Complete the game solo and "Leave No Friend Behind" (Finish the game without any party members dying). "Back to Basics" i.e. Speak to all the Candlekeep Tutors and learn what they have to teach you is funny and a nice touch.

I especially like Complete the game solo and "Leave No Friend Behind" (Finish the game without any party members dying). "Back to Basics" i.e. Speak to all the Candlekeep Tutors and learn what they have to teach you is funny and a nice touch.

There's something heart warming about this. Concrete evidence in-your-face that 1.4 exists somewhere. This sort of thing is just great when you've been a Valve fan for so long